This board is a composition workshop, like a writers' workshop: post your work with questions about style or vocabulary, comment on other people's work, post composition challenges on some topic or form, or just dazzle us with your inventive use of galliambics.

I am writing in Ancient Greek not because I know Greek well, but because I hope that it will improve my fluency in reading. I got the idea for this from Adrianus over on the Latin forum here at Textkit.

Let's make a deal. You help me with this prayer, and I'll pray for you to be helped.

πάνυ γε!

...τοῦ Μαρτινοῦ Λυττήρου.

γράφοιμι δὴ τὸ...τοῦ Μαρτίνου Λύθηρος.

καλῶς. νῦν δέ σε δεῖ προσεύχεσθαι ἵνα μοι βοηθῇ ὁ Θεός!

I am writing in Ancient Greek not because I know Greek well, but because I hope that it will improve my fluency in reading. I got the idea for this from Adrianus over on the Latin forum here at Textkit.

I am writing in Ancient Greek not because I know Greek well, but because I hope that it will improve my fluency in reading. I got the idea for this from Adrianus over on the Latin forum here at Textkit.

I found Luther’s Morning Prayer translated into Greek, from 1577 (Selnecker). I think this is Koine Greek (any opinions on that????). It seems that they were using Greek as an academic language. I have another edition that is in German, Latin, Greek, and HEBREW!

Here's my problem. I decyphered the running miniscule, except for one word. It’s seen in the image here. The phrase is also underlined in my transcription below.

I believe after reading an online English translation of this prayer that the word is simply "γὰρ".

I write in Greek so as to review the Greek I had already learned as well as trial and error with the challenge of writing something new. If you see a mistake, please tell me so I can be a better student of the language.

A friend who studied minuscule writing agrees. He said it's a standard way of writing γαρ. Another friend looked at the Hebrew, Latin, and German parallel translations in a similar text, and found ki, quia, and denn. So, γαρ it must be. Thanks.

I found Luther’s Morning Prayer translated into Greek, from 1577 (Selnecker). I think this is Koine Greek (any opinions on that????). It seems that they were using Greek as an academic language. I have another edition that is in German, Latin, Greek, and HEBREW!

Yes, this strikes me as basic Koine, with fairly simple syntax and an absence of particles.

One does wonder about Selnecker's motives. It's hard to imagine Lutheranism having much of an audience among Greek speaking Byzantine communities, and there a more Demotic version would be indicated. So I agree with you that it appears Ancient Greek was being composed for the same reason we compose it now, to help learn the language.

I think your version holds up fairly well to Selnecker's. The ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐμέ...is a nice turn of phrase. Jesus could have said: ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐμὲ καὶ τὴν διδασκαλίαν ἡμῖν ἔδωκα.

I would like to know more about WHY they were translating things into Koine. Here's a clue:

" When, in 1539, Justus Jonas translated the Nuernberg Sermons for Children, he made a third Latin translation of the Small Catechism. He calls it "this my Latin translation, not carefully finished indeed, but nevertheless rendered in good faith." (627.) This Latin text obtained special importance since it was immediately done into English, Polish, and Icelandic. In 1560 Job Magdeburg furnished a fourth Latin version. Concerning the translations into Greek, Hebrew, and other languages see Weimar Edition of Luther's Complete Works (10, 1, 718f.)"

http://bookofconcord.org/historical-9.php

Someday, I'd like to find that reference in Luther's Works and see what Luther said about these translations into Greek. (I tried looking at the online copy yesterday, but couldn't seem to find the right place in Volume 10.) From this webpage's comments, it seems that Latin was the bridge language. The academic language which others could then use to decypher and translate German. Could Koine have been the same? Maybe there were those in the Christian church (as today) who would understand Koine, but not understand either Latin or German.

Some months ago, I had some of my students talking in Koine (via video taped messages) with some students in the Far East. It was a magical experience to see Koine truly be used as a medium of communication. This wasn't a classroom stunt (like what I do all the time) to create a situation in which Koine can be used communicatively. This was actual communication in Koine.